Nay, it was about trust. Gain a horse’s trust—and honor that trust—and he would walk through fire for his master.
Gemma led Hannibal into the paddock and immediately saw they weren’t alone. On the far end were Lady Artemis and her filly, Dido. The close bond those two shared was apparent for anyone to see. Dido was a sweet goer, that was for sure. A reflection of her owner, too, though Gemma had only seen Lady Artemis around the stables from a distance. A high-born lady wouldn’t have noticed a lowly stable lad like Gem.
Gemma always thought well of an owner with a sweet-natured horse.
And the opposite of an owner when the opposite was true.
Which put her in two minds about Rakesley. The duke ran an indisputably good stable. Yet…he seemed single-mindedly intent on getting what he wanted out of Hannibal.
Which Gemma didn’t like.
Hannibal had boundaries that needed to be respected and addressed before he could be the racehorse he’d been bred to be.
“Are you the lad called Gem?” Lady Artemis called out.
Gemma glanced up from beneath the warped brim of her slouch hat and found the lady watching her expectantly. She couldn’t very well ignore the question, but, oh, how she wanted to. No good could come from “Gem” conversing with the duke’s sister.
“Aye,” she mumbled, gaze returned to the tips of her brown boots.
When the silence held for a few heartbeats longer than strictly necessary, Gemma risked another glance at Lady Artemis, who was now walking over with Dido. “Does my brother know you’ve been taking Hannibal out in the early mornings?”
“Can’t say,” was all Gemma mumbled. She’d been keeping her speech short and to the point since her blow-up at Rakesley a week ago. If she was found out as a woman, she was done for.
And she wasn’t ready to be done for. She hadn’t yet earned her fifty pounds.
There was also Hannibal to consider.
He needed her.
A smile entered Lady Artemis’s deep brown eyes. Eyes so similar to her brother’s. But where his were hard and unfathomable, hers were soft and kind. “Your secret is safe with me, Gem. You’ve done wonders for Hannibal already. You have a rare gift if you can achieve harmony with that beast,” she finished on a laugh.
Though Lady Artemis had spoken the words with humor rather than cruelty, Gemma’s hackles couldn’t help rising—and she couldn’t help speaking a bit of her mind. “That’s where we think wrongly about horses. When they suffer a malady of the body, we do all we can to mend it. But when it’s a malady of the mind, we call the horses beasts and dismiss them as worthless.”
Lady Artemis canted her head to the side as she listened, her gaze narrowed not on Hannibal but on…Gem.
Oh, why had she opened her mouth?
“And you see all that?” asked Lady Artemis, slowly, an impressed smile spreading across her face. “You have the patience and the ability to heal such a malady, don’t you, Gem?”
Gemma’s gaze returned to her feet, a blush surely heating her cheeks. She’d never known what to do with compliments. “I wouldn’t want to overstate my abilities.”
“Whyever not?” laughed Lady Artemis. “Don’t hide your candle under a bushel. Isn’t that how it goes?” She wasn’t finished. “Is that your mission, Gem? To help horses who are damaged in the mind?”
“Aye,” muttered Gemma. Lady Artemis was quite the inquisitive lady.
Too inquisitive for Gemma’s comfort.
Lady Artemis’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Oh, I know,” she exclaimed. “You could create a horse sanctuary.”
Gemma almost snorted. Nobs. So wrapped up in their own little worlds.
Did none of them know the cost of anything?
“I don’t have the blunt for that,” she said mildly. “But I’d like to travel around someday. From stable to stable, where I’m needed.”
“That’s wonderful, Gem.” Lady Artemis beamed with sincerity. Though the lady was a nob, she was a very nice nob. “When you’re ready to embark upon such an enterprise, please call on me. I’ve a bit of blunt lying around, and I’d love to contribute to the rehabilitation of animals.”
Gemma nodded her thanks, humbly, as a lowly stable lad would to his betters, and tightened her hold on Hannibal’s reins. She could sense him growing restive from proximity to Dido and inactivity, and she needed him to be calm when she attempted to mount him.
Lady Artemis gave a parting nod and cooed to Dido as they walked away. “You’re my perfect girl, aren’t you?”
Alone with Hannibal, Gemma allowed the air to calm around them so the only sound and movement were his breath and hers. She ran a hand over his withers and allowed it to rest on the pommel of the saddle. She sensed no tense flexion of his muscles, so she slipped her boot into the stirrup.
Still, no tension.
The thing was that Hannibal wasn’t an unbroken horse. He’d been mounted and ridden before, that was apparent. But those who had done so had used force and cruelty. What Gemma wanted was for him to accept a rider with readiness. To know and trust that when he was mounted, he would feel the wind in his mane and experience joy—that taking on a rider was freedom, not imprisonment.
She took a quick sip of air and, in one familiar, swift motion, dug her boot into the stirrup and pushed off the ground as she heaved herself onto this towering sixteen-hands horse. The next moment, she found herself astride, and it was all she could do not to let out an exuberant whoop. It felt like the sweetest gift—to have gained Hannibal’s trust.
She leaned forward and stroked his mane. “Ah, we truly are friends, aren’t we?”
She straightened and caught a glimpse of Lady Artemis watching from the other side of the paddock, a broad smile on her face.
But Gemma wasn’t here to impress. She was here for Hannibal. Toward that end, she began to test him, to see what cues he took. She gave a light squeeze of her knees, and he began to walk. He had a smooth, easy action, she could already tell. Excitement that she hadn’t yet allowed herself to feel stole through her. This fellow would be a goer. It wasn’t only obvious from his size and pedigree, but from the way he walked.
“You have so much within you, don’t you, my friend?” she cooed into his ear.
He’d been wanting this too. A connection with someone who understood him.
And he wanted to run. She could feel it as she reined him in and resisted urging him into a trot.
He’d trusted her thus far; he would still have to trust her.
“Oh, we will run, my friend, but not yet. Let’s get to understand one another today,” she said with rising anticipation of that future moment.
They’d circled the paddock a few times when Hannibal’s ears flicked forward, and sudden tension entered his body. He’d seen something. She shushed him and stroked his mane, even as her gaze cast about.
Then she saw it beyond the paddock gate.
A figure, quiet and unmoving.
Rakesley.
She knew it with a certainty she didn’t understand.
He stepped into light growing brighter in slow dawn increments, his dark, intense gaze upon her.
He’d been watching all this time.
She could be dismissed for insubordination.